I'll never talk to mother again, vows baronet in heirlooms row

An acrimonious dispute within one of England's oldest families will lead to the splitting up of a unique £1 million collection of portraits and heirlooms dating back more than five centuries.

Paintings from the van Dyke school and letters from a succession of monarchs will be sold next week after the Langhams, once said to be one of the wealthiest families in the land, fell out in dramatic fashion.

Generations of family portraits will go under the hammer on Monday after Sir John Langham, 44, failed to reconcile his differences with his mother, the dowager Lady Marion Langham, 64, who lives with her French boyfriend in a bungalow on the family estate.

Sir John has vowed that he will not speak to his mother again "as long as I live".

The 16th baronet of Cottesbrooke was originally given the estate by his father, Sir James, before he died, to avoid death duties. He also bequeathed the contents to his estranged wife as part of her upkeep. The couple never formally divorced.

But, following an argument over the use of a large glasshouse owned by Sir John, Lady Marion instructed solicitors to remove all the contents at Tempo Manor, a Dutch-gabled Victorian house in 300 acres of woodland and rivers near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

The manor, which the Langhams moved into 150 years ago after selling the family home of Cottesbrooke Hall, Northants, is now a shell of its former self with the wood-panelled corridors and magnificent rooms denuded of paintings and furniture. Only the portrait of the first baronet, also Sir John, remains above the fireplace in the dining room.

The original Sir John, who made a fortune in the spice trade, played a key role in funding Charles II's army during the Restoration and was said to have given Londoners £1,000 a day after the Great Fire of 1666.

An earlier ancestor was Simon Langham, an Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor in the 14th century.

Among the 857 lots to be sold at Slane Castle, outside Dublin, will be a collection of royal correspondence to the Langhams. Bearing the Great Seal of England and written on vellum, the letters date from Edward II to Elizabeth I.

Other works include a portrait by Francis Cotes, valued at £72,000, a large 17th century painting of Prince Rupert, valued at £10,000, a framed display of souvenirs from the Battle of Waterloo and a chess set with each piece bearing the Langham coat of arms (£7,000).

Sir John, an internet website designer, will attempt to buy back as much as he can afford but knows that much of the collection will be lost to the family.

He originally offered his mother £500,000, most of it coming from a loan, for the contents but she declined after being told the goods could fetch more at auction.

"If she had bought at the initial valuation we would have had a family afterwards," Sir John said at his six-bedroom home yesterday.

"I'm absolutely devastated. It is completely wrong that they are being sold. They mean more to us than anyone else and once a collection like this is broken up it is very hard to get it back together again. We are not looking forward to the auction. It's going to be heart-wrenching."

Lady Sarah, 44, his wife and the mother of their three children Tyrone, 10, Phoebe, five, and Isabella, three, said her mother-in-law wanted the cash to fund trips abroad.

"She was given the contents in order to protect them and make sure they were kept in the family," she said. "But it's now time to move on. It is very, very sad because we are only custodians to these things."

But Lady Marion said the money was to be spent on her other son, 40, who became paraplegic following an accident in Australia 20 years ago, and her mentally disabled daughter, 37.

Lady Marion played down the rift with her son, saying it was just a family row.

"It's a disagreement over the way I am doing things," she said. "Of course I will be sad after the auction because I have spent most of my life trying to keep it together.

"But I'm not prepared to have a fight with my son in the papers. He knows why I have done it. I'm probably much more sad than he is."

Her son disputes this.

He added: "One thing I know for certain, my father would have wanted these items to stay in Tempo Manor."